Lack of Negotiation Skills Puts Women at a Disadvantage

November 17, 2003

When asked to pick metaphors for the process of salary negotiation, men picked "winning a ballgame" and a "wrestling match," while women picked "going to the dentist."

The importance of salary negotiating is often glazed over after the excitement of accepting a job offer. But a woman has the power at age 22 to make a decision that can affect her entire career and it all comes down to bargaining over her starting salary.

Men are eight times as likely as women to bargain over starting pay.

A 22-year-old woman who fails to get her first job offer of $25,000 boosted by $5,000 stands to lose more than $568,000 by age 60, says Linda Babcock, a Carnegie Mellon University economics professor.

Negotiating proves to new colleagues that you have the skills to negotiate and the confidence to stand up for yourself, often desired in a corporate representative.

To help women learn the skills they need for effective negotiating, online courses and executive-education programs are becoming more popular, teaching women to be more successful self-advocates through role-playing, discussing case histories, and videotaping simulations of their own pending negotiations.